The Aiken Fighting Green Hornets will challenge the River Bluff Gators at 5:00 p.m. on Friday. Both are sauntering into the matchup backed by comfortable wins in their prior games.
Aiken is headed into the match having just posted their biggest victory since October 3, 2023 on Tuesday. They blew past North Augusta 3-0. The win was nothing new for the Fighting Green Hornets as they're now sitting on three straight.
Aiken didn't let North Augusta take a single set, but it sure wasn't easy: every set was decided by three points or less. Once all was said and done, the final score wound up at 25-23, 25-23, 33-31.
Caroline Smith and Abigail Tyler were among the main playmakers for Aiken as the former had five digs and four aces and the latter had 20 kills, five digs, and three aces. The dominant performance gave Smith a new career-high in aces.
Aiken was lethal from the service line and finished the game with 15 aces. That strong performance was nothing new for the team: they've now served at least seven aces in five consecutive matchups.
Lakeside typically has all the answers at home, but on Tuesday River Bluff proved too difficult a challenge. They were the clear victor by a 3-0 margin over the Panthers.
After all that action, the final score was 25-13, 25-15, 25-21.
Masyn Mcclanahan was the offensive standout of the contest as she had six aces and five digs.
Aiken is on a roll lately: they've won four of their last five games, which provided a nice bump to their 7-2 record this season. As for River Bluff, their victory was their third straight on the road, which pushed their record up to 15-4.
Here's a few offensive stats to keep an eye on ahead of Friday's match: Aiken has serving mastered this season, having averaged 9.8 aces per game. However, it's not like River Bluff struggles in that department as they've been averaging 7.6. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Aiken came up short against River Bluff when the teams last played back in September of 2019, falling 2-0. Can Aiken avenge their loss or is history doomed to repeat itself? We'll find out soon enough.
Article generated by infoSentience based on data entered on MaxPreps
